Materials

This paper describes in detail a wide range of disparities and inequities experienced by women of color across the domains of economics, safety, and health. It explains that these outcomes are not the result of individual ambition or aptitudes, as conservatives often suggest, but rather an outgrowth of a web of racialized and gendered rules—policies, institutions, and practices—that have emerged from the United States’ long history of racism and sexism.

To address violence against women, the report advocates such policy changes as the establishment of required national standards for child sexual abuse prevention for youth-serving organizations, increasing resources for female service members who experience military sexual trauma and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, including protections for immigrant, LGBT and Native American women.

The document focuses on engaging survivors and communities as "key assets," giving them the voice and power to inform policy decisions more effectively. The Ms. Foundation has identified three large themes under which this goal may be accomplished: